Happy, Kludgey New Year.

Just a quick one, to start the new year off right.

Last night I finally deleted Facebook, along with Reddit off my phone, I don't know how long I'll be able to stick with it but I've been spending considerably too much time scrolling both, even if I don't participate on them, and rolling into 2025 felt like as good a time as any to take the overdue step of removing them from my life.

I won't ramble for too long, but social media has a one-two punch of negativity, at least for me.

Part 1 is the time vacuum it is, especially for me, an introvert, it's so easy to get caught scrolling passively when I don't necessarily feel like I have the energy to engage with others or do a more fulfilling task, social media is there to suck me in and keep me going longer and longer. It's horrible and I've given much time of mine to the almighty algorithm. 

Part 2 is a well documented phenomenon that generally folks post only the best parts of their lives, which leads to a subconscious comparison of their curated lives I can see with my own deeply imperfect non curated life and the negative impact that has on my mental health. So, after falling on and off the bandwagon for almost a year, never fully having the strength to delete them fully, I decided starting 2025 with a fresher slate was the way. 

That leaves me with some time today I'd normally spend mindlessly scrolling to share a small, fun, and amusing project of mine I cooked up today.

I live in the great white north, not sure if I've mentioned that before. Well anyways, it's great white northing right now, and I've got an at least 200' long driveway, no snowplow, no snowblower, and a shovel ain't cutting the chut. I've got about a hundred and fifty projects on the go right now so I don't really have the time to be modifying my pickup truck to accept a plow and building or buying one, but I've gotta do SOMETHING with the snow. Initially I figured I'd survive this winter by just packing the snow down with my pickup, but tires are NARROW.

I've been tossing around a couple ideas, maybe a hitch receiver mounted packing roller or something, meantime I gotta sort something out.

Well, enter the old hot water tank I pulled out of the basement a few months ago that my friend made light fun of me for keeping. It just so happens to be exactly the right height to chill just under the tow hooks bolted to the front of my truck. Add a scrap chunk of chain found convinently in the garage, a couple of ratchet straps and BOOM

You've got the shittiest, weirdest... Uh... Plow?... Packer?... Uh... A la the Facebook group which I'm mildly sad I won't be posting in "homemade attachments"... Homemade attachment?

You can see I didn't even bother to remove the galvanized pipe off the top of the tank. Too much work. 

I figured this thing would come loose immediately and jam up the front of my truck so I set off cautiously. 20 feet... No sound. Hopped out, still secure... End of driveway, hopped out, still secure. Three point turn? Still secure! Fuck yea! It's narrow, it doesn't cover the gap between the wheels let alone the width of the truck but DAMN it's holding strong and packs/plows/whatever damn nicely!

Moved the CRV out of the way and got to plowing!

Did it take way longer than it ought to have to "plow"? yes.

Is it anything resembling perfect?

Absolutely not!

Did it do the trick? Hell yeah!

V bar chains + shitty 2g gasser + ancient HWT, boomchakalaka we in business.

Anyhoo, that's it that's all. It wasn't short, it wasn't long, but it was fun to write. Here's to many more this coming year, in wild sporadic rotation, as mental health or lack thereof allow. 

Life is good friend. Search for peace, it's a wonderful thing.

I love you ❤️